A Perfect Circle
by gwendolyn-flight
Summary: In which Snape is a better actor than even he guessed, and Harry makes a bargain with the devil. Chapter Five, musings of a madman.
1. Blackmail Lullabye

This is actually my first Harry Potter fic. The plot was inspired by an X-files  
fic intitled The Rape.   
  
Disclaimers: I don't own any of this. Leave me be!  
  
Warnings: Eventually NC-17 for rape, non-con, sexual abuse, however  
you wanna say it. Oh, and slash.  
  
Summary: In which Snape is a better actor than even he guessed, and  
Harry makes a bargain with the devil.  
  
  
******************************  
A Perfect Circle  
Chapter One: Blackmail Lullabye   
******************************  
  
metaphor for a missing moment  
pull me into your perfect circle   
one womb one shape one resolve   
liberate this will to release us all  
gotta cut away clear away snip away and sever this   
umbilical residue that's keeping me from killing you   
and from pulling you down with me here   
i can almost hear you scream  
give me one more medicated peaceful moment  
because i don't want to feel this overwhelming hostility  
gotta cut away clear away snip away and sever this   
umbilical residue that's keeping me from killing you  
  
-orestes  
-a perfect circle  
  
  
  
The corridors were dark with the full flush of evening, and Harry crept through  
them with the confidence of an oversized invisibility cloak. Somewhere in the  
echoing halls a clock began to strike midnight, and Harry's light steps   
quickened to a run, his hand going to the note in his pocket. He stroked the   
crumpled paper, feeling his breath begin to burn with desperation as he hit   
the first set of stairs. He'd never make it on time.   
  
He was gasping now; his invisible passage excited a murmuring from the   
paintings as he flew past, heedless of the noise he made. He jerked his hand   
from his pocket, abandoning the note in favor of the added leverage he   
needed to bound up the stairs two and three at a time.  
  
The clock chimed eight.  
  
The clock chimed nine.  
  
The clock chimed ten.  
  
He staggered to a halt, sweat dripping down his brow and dampening the collar of his  
jumper–Weasley green. The door to the tower was closed, as he'd expected, though he  
knew that it wouldn't be locked. The two gargoyles stared at him blankly, and didn't   
react when he lowered the cloak and stepped past them and through the door.  
  
The clock chimed twelve.  
  
The door squealed itself shut.  
  
"I'm not late," he gasped, searching the dark room for any sign of activity: his night vision  
had never been particularly good, and as this room had no windows it was literally darker  
than pitch. It was also silent; his harsh breaths were the only sound, and when he shuffled   
his feet nervously, the rasping shush-shush seemed magnified out of proportion. "I'm   
*not*." He said again, insistent.  
  
There was a rustling in the deeper shadows; strange how after several moments of terror he  
could distinguish between shades of black. The sound came again, like the sloughing noise  
of swarming locusts or crushed-velvet robes.   
  
"Professor?" Harry asked nervously, wishing he'd been allowed to bring his wand; a quick   
lumos spell would have been a huge relief. He didn't like this dark. It felt like it was pressing  
down on him. "Professor, I'm here, why--"  
  
"That's enough, Potter."  
  
The man stepped out of the shadows, and finally Harry could make out the darker shape   
against the cluttered and shaded walls. He swallowed; his breathing had slowed and   
evened, but it quickened now as a nervous sweat sprang up on the back of his neck.   
  
"Is he . . ." Harry couldn't even finish the thought.  
  
"I keep my word. He yet lives. Lumos."  
  
Light flared, momentarily blinding Harry; he brought his hands up to his eyes, dropping   
the invisibility cloak in an effort to save his vision. He squinted into the ghostly wizard   
light, glaring up at Snape. The man looked rather put out, as though Harry's successful  
arrival had lessened his enjoyment of the night's activities.  
  
A low moan startled him, and he whirled, only to see a body on the floor. He rushed to  
Dumbledore's side, cradling the fragile head in his hands.  
  
"You said you wouldn't hurt him, damnit!" Harry panted, running frantic fingers through the  
wispy white hair. "I came, you said . . . I came."  
  
"This was merely a demonstration, Potter," Snape sneered, moving to hold a small orb   
in the light. It gleamed softly, causing Harry to glance up at his teacher; he paused, staring  
at the globe. It was beautiful, though the interior was marred by a series of flecks and   
black bubbles. Harry's eyes narrowed, and he met Snape's black glare.  
  
"What did you mean, demonstration?" He asked, voice low and wary. Snape smiled, his   
lips twisting in a painful-looking grimace.  
  
"I told you I wouldn't *kill* him if you came," Snape said, his voice holding something like   
a laugh. "I never mentioned hurting anyone."  
  
"What is that thing?"  
  
"Oh, good, ten points to Griffyndor," Snape said mockingly. "It's a Onan Orb. And don't   
bother taking this information to Granger, even she won't be able to help you with a   
solution this time. I invented the Orb."  
  
"What does it do?" Harry asked carefully, hands still idly stroking Dumbledore's hair; the   
old wizard groaned again, and seemed to be waking.  
  
"It kills. Quite simply, it fills the blood until the heart bursts." Snape actually smiled then,   
and Harry shuddered, his mind filling with a brief image of Dumbledore's funeral, in full  
technicolor. "And no thought of stealing it, either. This Orb is merely a trigger. The spell  
is already in the headmaster's blood. Without my daily intervention, he will die whether   
you have the Orb or not."  
  
Harry shuddered again, feeling his heart thump once, heavily; then it settled into his chest   
like ice. Dumbledore had quieted, but lines of strain were carved around his eyes, and   
the veins of his forehead throbbed visibly, as though his blood *had* been full and swollen   
with some spell. Harry firmed his resolve; he would not fail the Headmaster. Not with all   
that he owed him.  
  
He looked up, meeting Snape's knowing gaze. He swallowed.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
Snape smiled again.  
  
"That is not a matter to be discussed here." The potions master turned his back as though   
aware that Harry was no longer a threat. "Come down to my office tomorrow night, same time."  
  
Harry glared at his back, wishing with everything in him that he had his wand, wishing that   
having his wand would make a bit of difference. He sighed.  
  
"Yessir," he mumbled, moving to attend to Dumbledore.  
  
"Oh, and Potter?"  
  
Snape's words made him pause; he looked up from his task, feeling a trickle of dread  
begin at the base of his spine.  
  
"If you are late again, it won't go so easy for your precious headmaster."  
  
And with that, the professor had gone.  
  
Harry sighed, relieved, and set about tending to Dumbledore's comfort.  
  
Tomorrow night . . .  
  
What could Snape possibly want this badly?  
  
"Harry?"  
  
Dumbledore stirred, and Harry nearly fell backwards when the headmaster spoke.  
  
"Sir! Do you remember what happened?" he asked anxiously, helping the  
old wizard sit up. Dumbledore frowned, fumbling about with one shaking  
hand until he found his half-moon glasses and perched them upon his nose.  
Then he smiled.  
  
"I haven't the faintest, my dear boy," he said joivially. "What brings you  
up here in the dead of night?" he continued, heaving himself to his feet with   
a groan. Harry stood with him, keeping an arm ready should he fall.  
  
Dumbledore's eyes met his, and he was struck rather suddenly with an  
extremely Slytherin thought: He doesn't remember. Quick! Make  
something up!  
  
"I . . .I," he fumbled, putting a hand to his forehead to help himself think.   
"I . . ." His fingers brushed across his scar. "My scar hurt!" He blurted,   
turning just as Dumbledore sat wearily behind his desk. "And I thought  
I should come tell you, so I did; only the door was open and the gargoyles  
let me in and you weren't moving . . . I was just about to go and get help . . ."  
he trailed off miserably, unable to meet the headmaster's gaze. Harry hated   
having to lie to the man.   
  
"Did a vision accompany this pain, Harry?" Dumbledore looked quite grave  
and serious, very paternalistic. Harry swallowed and shook his head.  
  
"No," Harry said aloud. "Just the pain."  
  
"Well, that would seem to indicate that one of Voldemort's followers is  
very close," Dumbledore mused quietly, gleaming eyes still fixed on the  
Boy Who Lived.  
  
"Should I go for help?" Harry asked tentatively, taking one step toward the   
door.   
  
"No," Dumbledore answered with a slightly wistful smile. "I would have liked  
to visit Poppy, but there's no sense in waking her now. Everything is fine, my  
boy," the headmaster continued. "You should get to bed."  
  
"Yessir," Harry whispered, staring at Dumbledore for just a moment as though   
he'd never see the old wizard again; then he stepped swiftly into the corridor,   
nearly running until he was back on a lower level.   
  
He stopped after several minutes, breath heaving; he leaned against a wall, letting his   
head fall back to thump into stone. He was crying.  
  
He'd never realized just how frail Dumbledore was before.  
  
The old wizard couldn't take care of Harry. He couldn't even take care of himself.  
  
Harry let the knowledge of his own isolation and vulnerability fill him until he  
slid down the wall to his knees. His tears had stopped. This was too big for  
crying.  
  
Snape wanted to see him tomorrow night, and he still had no idea *why* Snape  
was doing this.  
  
Dumbledore was more than just a bit batty, he was defenseless against the potions   
master.  
  
Sirius was still on the run.  
  
No way was he bringing Ron or Mione in on this.  
  
Harry was comepletely alone.  
  
**********************  
To be continued in The Bargain Chapter Two: Fallen Angel 


	2. The Art of Compromise

Disclaimers: I don't own any of this. Leave me be!  
  
Warnings: Eventually NC-17 for rape, non-con, sexual abuse, however  
you wanna say it. Oh, and slash.  
  
Summary: In which Snape is a better actor than even he guessed, and  
Harry makes a bargain with the devil.  
  
(This disclaimer/warning statement was copy-pasted from  
chapter one for your reading enjoyment. Thank you, and  
have a nice day.)  
  
This is kind of the Evil!Snape companion fic to Separation Anxiety,  
my Nice!Snape fic. So answers to behavorial questions could be  
answered in the other fic, if you wanna cheat. If not, don't worry.  
All shall be revealed. Provided I get four more reviews and a  
snickers bar.  
  
******************************************  
A Perfect Circle  
Chapter Two: Learning to Surrender  
******************************************  
  
humbled and helpless   
learning to pray   
praying for visions to show me the way  
show me the way to forgive you   
allow me to let it go  
allow me to be forgiven   
and show me the way to let go  
illuminate me   
i'm just praying for you to show me where i'm to begin  
hoping to reconnect to you  
-thomas  
-a perfect circle  
  
  
  
  
The room reeked of chemicals. Natural agents, man-made formulas, and above   
all else the stink of sulfur.  
  
"So, you decided to come."  
  
The voice emerged from the depths of the cavernous room, silk over steel, a   
deep-throated, venomous growl. Snape as a teacher dripped menace like   
venom. Snape as a blackmailer was simply terrifying.  
  
"Yes, sir," Harry answered, hesitantly defiant. Something moved in the shadows;   
light caught a gleam on black hair.   
  
"You're early," Snape continued. "Pity."  
  
"Why's that, sir?" Harry asked, still frozen just inside the door.  
  
"Why, I suppose 'tis a pity I have no excuse to torment that old fool. As I am a   
man of my word," he concluded, a provocative hiss creeping into his tone.   
Harry's head came up, and his nostrils flared.  
  
"And which word is that, sir? Certainly not to Dumbledore!"  
  
Had Harry actually hoped to provoke a reaction, he would have been sorely   
disappointed.  
  
"Ever the Griffindor."  
  
As it was, he breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
Silence ticked through the dungeon like a solid, eddying wave. Harry could   
hear the pounding of his heart echoing in the stone rafters. He wished briefly  
that he'd been brave enough--or careless enough--to bring his wand.   
  
Snape was utterly still; only the glimmer of light and the occasional clink of   
metal on glass gave away his position.  
  
"Sir?" Harry whispered after a time.  
  
"Yes, Potter?" Shadow and flame.  
  
"What do you want from me?" The question that had plagued his mind from   
the instant he'd received Snape's ultimatum. The foremost question in his   
whirling mind, next to *why*.  
  
Snape chuckled.  
  
Never a pretty sound, now it curled the fine hairs of Harry's neck in an atavistic   
response of fight-or-flight. Harry shuddered.  
  
"Cooperation," Snape said at last.   
  
"In what, exactly?" Harry asked cautiously, an awful feeling of foreboding roiling   
from the base of his spine.  
  
Snape's shadow paused its rhythmic movement, and seemed to consider him.   
A drop of sweat ran down Harry's neck to streak his collarbone and breast. He   
flinched.  
  
"Come," Snape said, rising in a swirl of black robes. Nazgul he was not, but   
Harry followed him on trembling legs through a series of stone-mantled doors   
into a room deep in the dungeons. A black-robed Siren. Or as Riley once said   
to Buffy, "Even when he's being a good guy he's all Mister Billowy-Coat King   
of Pain." And Snape was definitely *not* being a good guy.  
  
He followed the Potions Master into a firelit bedroom in the dungeon's depths;   
the decor was predictably dark, all rich gleaming woods and thick fabrics. A   
mirror glimmered the firelight in one corner, waves and licks at odd angles,   
independent of both natural laws and physical logic.   
  
Harry paused, feeling that same unease ripple through him. The Orb lurked,   
an unassuming opacity on a small cherrywood settee.   
  
"What do you want from me?" Harry asked again, voice thin and near-silent.   
Snape glowered at him wordlessly for a few long moments before speaking.  
  
"Undress and get on the bed," he said coolly, as though assigning his latest   
project. Harry just stared at him.  
  
"What?!" he gasped finally, frankly gaping at the taller man.  
  
"Mirror," Snape said obliquely, turning to the far corner. "Professor   
Dumbledore's office."  
  
The mirror rippled, though not *with* the firelight, which disappeared into   
darkness. Its surface swirled, looking for a moment like unicorn's blood   
before resolving into a perfect view of the headmaster's office.   
  
Whether there was a corresponding mirror upstairs or whether the mirror   
acted outside of such limitations, Harry was unsure. But the image seemed   
"live": Dumbledore was writing something at his desk, probably a missive   
to the Ministry of Magic, and occasionally sipping from a delicate china cup.   
The scene looked very . . . mundane. Peaceful.  
  
"I would strongly suggest your immediate and complete compliance, Mister   
Potter," Snape growled silkily. "There's rather more at stake here than a few   
house points."  
  
Harry continued to stare at Dumbledore's image, as everything inside of   
him--a turmoil of fear and disgust and doubt--froze into an impenetrable well.   
His mind, separate of feeling, seemed to be floating over this well, and was   
surprisingly coherent and cool-headed. Detached.   
  
"What must I do?" he asked in an altogether different voice; he sounded   
dead. Indifferent.   
  
Snape smiled slowly, and Harry's carefully disconnected heart fluttered in   
his chest like a trapped sparrow.  
  
"You, Mr. Potter?" he said with genuine humor. "*You* do not have to do   
anything, aside from undressing and laying on the bed. *I*, however, am   
going to rape you. Any questions?"  
  
Harry licked his dry lips, feeling his indifference bleeding into confusion.  
  
"Excuse me, but I don't understand," he whispered.  
  
"Now there's a surprise," Snape said dryly. Harry continued as though the   
Potions Master hadn't spoken.  
  
"But you said 'rape'. I don't understand."  
  
Snape folded his arms into his robe and across his chest, glowering.  
  
"It's quite simple, my boy. I've been ordered to either kill you or bring you   
under control--"  
  
"Voldemort," Harry whispered sickly.  
  
"Precisely," Snape acknowledged. "My options were few: tell the headmaster,   
and lose you both to the third forbidden curse. Kill you, and lose the world to   
the Deatheaters and their master . . ."  
  
"And the third?"  
  
"Make Lord Voldemort believe you broken." Snape smiled, and again Harry   
shivered. "Not an easy task, and one achieved through few means.   
Consequently," Snape said with finality, advancing slowly on the frozen boy.   
"I shall take you under control."  
  
"But I don't understand," Harry repeated himself, sounding lost. "You   
mentioned . . .rape." Said as though afraid to bring it to the Potion Master's   
attention.   
  
"Why, so I did." Snape paused. "When I say 'under control', I'm not referring   
to your grades or your continual delinquency within the school. No, Lord   
Voldemort wants you either dead or a puppet to his will. I prefer the puppet   
option, though I'm willing to consider your opinion on the matter."  
  
"I fail to see how raping anyone will help the situation," Harry pointed out,   
channeling Hermione's gift for logic.  
  
"Perhaps my motives aren't entirely selfless," Snape admitted, a curious   
smile curling the bare corner of his mouth. Harry swallowed.  
  
"You would do this?" He asked shakily. "You would kill Dumbledore over   
some perverse desire to sleep with a student?"  
  
"Yes," Snape said slowly. "It's odd . . ." he continued, furrowing his brow and   
looking down. "I swear I didn't feel this for you when you first arrived. I *hated*   
your father . . . Perfect Potter, so very Griffindor . . . Just like you . . ."  
  
He trailed off, and met Harry's fear-widened eyes.  
  
"No matter," Snape purred, leaning in to run his finger across Harry's brow,   
smiling as the boy winced away. "Lord Voldemort wants to *see* you broken.   
You'll be coming to a meeting when I'm through with you, and then you'll pray   
for a return to our time alone."  
  
"Don't do this," Harry said, with a last forlorn look to Dumbledore's image.   
"Please don't do this."  
  
Snape cupped Harry's cheek in his broad palm, forcing the green-eyed boy to   
meet his glare.  
  
"Get on the bed," he growled. "For Dumbledore's sake, don't make me tell you   
again."  
  
Harry staggered back from the touch, feeling it stinging through his scar as   
though Voldemort himself were in the room; Snape merely watched him as he   
rubbed at his scar, and then began fumbling with the buttons of his cloak.  
  
The room was cold, he noticed as his cloak fell away; he shivered in his   
jumper and white dress shirt, and wondered if he would freeze to death   
before Snape . . . His mind refused to finish the thought, and he settled on   
a recitation of Transfiguration incantations as he pulled the jumper over his   
head.   
  
His eye caught the hand-knitted 'H' on the front of the green jumper, and his   
fingers stuttered to a halt. The Weasleys. What would Ron think if he found out?   
What would everyone think? What would Dumbledore think? It would be worse   
than the Triwizard Tournament, worse than Rita Skeeter's articles about his   
propensity for midnight tears, worse than Draco's continual taunts. Worse than--  
  
A hand caught him across the face, and he staggered back, palm flying   
instinctively to cradle his cheek in a protective hold. He stared up at Snape,   
somewhat taken aback.  
  
"Why--"  
  
"You were hyperventilating, Potter," Snape sneered.  
  
"I was?" Harry asked, still a bit dazed, fears rising in his head again. Snape   
glowered at him.  
  
"Indeed. You might want to stop thinking and bloody well get on with it before   
I lose my patience," he answered sharply. Long, flat-tipped fingers -- a pianist's   
hands -- reached for the tiny white buttons marching down the center of his   
chest, undoing them with the ease of long practice. Harry stood quietly, to all   
appearances staring with some fascination at Snape's left nipple.  
  
Of course, when the Potions Master's shirt had vanished was something of a   
mystery to Harry.  
  
Snape stripped him bare, his hands not rough, necessarily, but not exactly   
gentle either. The flat-tipped fingers were cold along Harry's bared skin, points   
of ice on satin, and he shivered his way to the bed. The Potions Mater followed   
him, also naked, cock nesting half-aroused in dark curls as he crawled onto   
the four-poster like a great cat, all long-limbed grace.   
  
Or like a snake, Harry decided, looking into the flat black eyes. The Orb was a   
glitter to his left. He swallowed.  
  
"What will . . . I don't . . ." Harry stammered, edging back nervously from the   
older man.  
  
Snape smiled.  
  
"I repeat, absolutely nothing," he said in a tone that might have been meant to   
be reassuring. It wasn't. "Turn onto your stomach," Snape continued, raising up   
onto his knees to arrange the boy like a modern art sculpture or his personal  
fuck toy. Snape smiled again, though to himself; he rather liked that last idea.  
  
Of course it was more than the raw sprawl of bone-pale flesh, *more* than the   
sharp demarcations of Quidditch-browned skin, *more* than the liquid shift   
and coil of sheathed muscle, than the tousle of ebony hair. Or perhaps it wasn't   
*more*. Perhaps it was simply that very thing.  
  
Snape's hands ran down the smooth back, soothing a hitching breath, reaching   
up to remove clunky glasses and toss them across the room; as though calmed   
by blindness, Harry stilled under the flexing hands, apparently content to wait   
out the Potions Master.   
  
Snape ignored Harry's mental absence, for the moment; the mind would return   
with pain, of that he was sure.   
***  
  
Harry was in the Third Floor Boy's Restroom, though he couldn't quite   
remember how he'd gotten there. He was curled in a fetal position on the floor   
of the leftmost stall, shivering.   
  
Snape had . . . No.  
  
Don't think about it.  
  
Harry ducked his head, scrubbing his forehead against his jean-clad knee. His   
robes were draped over his shoulders like a car coat, and he huddled into the   
warmth. His wand was still in his room, where he'd left it. He shuddered.   
  
The only sound for a long time was his own sobbing breaths; the castle was  
dark, and quiet with the dark, until Peeves rattled and clattered down the hall.   
The poltergeist didn't venture into the bathroom, though, and didn't pause on   
his rampage through the lonely halls.  
  
Harry was still alone.  
  
He buried his head in his arms, cradled on his knees, letting the knowledge   
that he was leaking blood from his torn anus shiver through him.   
  
He could still feel those hands--smoother than silk, rougher than honey-- on  
his skin, *on* him, *in* him. He rubbed one hand over his left bicep, as though   
to sooth the skin through the woolen jumper(Weasley green).  
  
Oh Merlin.  
  
The Weasleys. Hermione. Dumbledore . . .  
  
Harry's hand had sped in its rubbing on his arm, nails scratching futilely   
against the thick wool. His body shoved deeper into the corner, and his  
breath began coming in gasps.   
  
Either his nails cut through the wool, or the friction simply tore his skin, for  
blood began to run down his arm; a few drops spattered to the acoustic tile  
floor, and he sobbed, once, deep enough to choke on.  
  
He couldn't do this anymore, he decided, trying to breathe through the sobs.  
He couldn't face everyone else with this knowledge. Not this. Not . . .  
  
His head suddenly thumped back against the wall.  
  
Oh Merlin . . .  
  
He'd forgotten that double Potions was first thing in the morning.  
***  
  
Mwahahah! Yes, I cleverly dodged the "first night of sex" scene!   
Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha-- ack! ::cough. dies::  
Anyway, there WILL be actual in-scene sex in future chapters; this  
chapter was simply running too long, and I wanted to fit Harry's   
bathroom scene in.  
  
And please remember, these are unreliable narrators we're dealing   
with. Who knows if they're telling the truth? ;) 


	3. Never Ever Choose

A/N So, you get a bit from Snape in this chapter; pay attention.  
You might learn something. Then again, you might not. :)  
  
*****************************************  
A Perfect Circle  
Chapter Three: Never Ever Choose  
*****************************************  
  
judith  
a perfect circle  
  
you're such an inspiration for ways that i will never ever choose to be   
oh so many ways for me to show you how your savior has abandoned you  
fuck your god   
he did this  
took all you had and left you this way   
still you pray   
never stray   
never taste of the fruit   
never thought to question why  
it's not like you killed someone   
it's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side   
praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed   
he did it all for you  
oh so many ways for me to show you how your dogma has abandoned you  
pray to your christ   
to your god   
never taste of the fruit   
never stray   
never break   
never choke on a lie   
even though he's the one who did this to you   
thought to question why  
it's not like you killed someone   
it's not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side   
talk to jesus christ as if he knows the reasons why   
he did this all to you he did it all for you  
  
  
  
  
It was the dead of night. Killing time. Dying time.  
  
Appropriate.  
  
He sat meekly behind his desk, hands trembling as though with ague. His eyes   
were pressed firmly closed. Sweat beaded his temples, causing the fine tendrils   
of hair to cling in tiny curls. His pulse was slow and steady as the Thames, and   
visible in the spider-blue veins that mapped his porcelain skin.  
  
He breathed in. The scent of sex still rode the air, earthy and rich; he could catch   
the boy's perfume beneath the heavier musk. Scent of soap and sweat and heat.   
It dove straight into his brain, surfing a curve down synapses to a nestled heart of   
neurons.  
  
His heart jumped. He had wanted this forever.  
  
He wiped his hands on his robes, the sweat-streak invisible on the black, and looked   
down at the piled papers cluttering his desk. Half were slashed in red. The other half   
had yet to be read. He breathed again. The orb pulsed from its perch on his desk. It   
sat in one corner, near the edge. No fear of that falling.  
  
He blinked, very slowly and deliberately, and breathed in again. The scent stroked   
the currents of his brain as he fixed his ebon eyes on the restless potion. Parsley,   
cinnabar, a drop of his blood, a drop of the blood of his closest living relative, toad's   
ears, a raven's wing, oak leaves(dried and ground to powder), and wolfsbane.   
For flavor. Oh, skillful crafting! The brewing of this potion would please his master   
for eternity . . .  
  
His master . . .?  
  
He blinked, sharper this time, and shook his head once, as though to clear it.   
  
A vermilion 'F' caught his eye; languorously he turned his head, wetted his lips, and   
brought up his inked hand.   
  
The ink had dried to the crimson of spilled blood.   
  
His heart jumped again, but this time he ignored it; he dipped the quill, and poised it   
above the next roll of parchment.  
  
"The Common Uses of Fangroot in Sleep Aides," scrawled in an unpracticed hand.  
  
The topic was dandelion fluff and its varied uses.   
  
He sighed.   
  
He hated teaching. Hated reading these interminable, inevitably foolish essays night   
after night after bloody night. Maybe three students in the entire *school* had a proper   
understanding of potions. *Three*!   
  
The erroneous paper was soon covered in red welts and scores. Ink beaded and   
dripped on the parchment.   
  
His eyes squeezed shut again. He took another lungful of that smell, then regretfully  
banished it with a purifying charm.  
  
After all, he couldn't have his office smelling like a whorehouse.   
  
Not all the time, anyway.  
  
***************************  
  
It always begins with a dream.  
  
It often ends with a dream, as well.  
  
Snape was standing in the shadows of his office. They were breathing.   
  
The shadows, that is.   
  
He himself was not a physical presence in the dream, but seemed to be hovering  
near the door. Very close to the exit.   
  
Snape was fondling the orb. His movements were hard to make out in the shadows,   
but dream-Harry knew without a doubt that it was the orb glittering restlessly in  
those long, pale hands.   
  
Strong hands.   
  
As in a ghost of a remembered dream, he felt those fingertips pattering at his   
rebellious flesh, begging entry with smoothed caresses.   
  
He shook free.  
  
His dream-self felt nothing.  
  
His awareness was drifting toward Snape, who seemed curiously real for a   
dream figure, and his dream-heart was speeding up, and a sweat had come   
over his skin, and his vision was going blurry, and all of a sudden it didn't seem   
so much like a dream, and--  
  
"Harry!"  
  
Mmmrmph.  
  
Sometimes it ends the dream.  
  
"Harry! You're going to miss breakfast. Again!"  
  
Mmmron?  
  
"C'mon. Harry!"  
  
Deep in the fogged sleep, a hand touched his arm.  
  
A real hand, cold and rough.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
Harry snapped fully awake, startled by Ron's scream.   
  
He appeared to be on the floor. He was shivering.  
  
"Ron?" he asked, blinking warily up at his friend.  
  
"Remind me never to wake you again," Ron muttered, climbing to his feet.   
"You are *not* a morning person."  
  
"Yeah," Harry agreed slowly, his dreams and the night before coming back   
to him.   
  
Could Ron tell?  
  
Could Ron *know*?  
  
Ron was staring at him, and though Harry blinked down Ron's eyes seared   
his vulnerable flesh. Harry bit his lip, feeling his cheeks redden. "Look, I'll see   
you in the Great Hall, alright?"  
  
"Alright, Harry," Ron agreed slowly, sounding worried. He paused as though   
about to speak for a moment; then his stomach growled. He sighed, shoulders   
slumping comically, and he slung his worn book bag over his shoulder as he   
trudged toward the stairs.  
  
Sometimes Harry had to remind himself that he liked the Weasleys for reasons   
*other* than their general obliviousness.  
  
He climbed to his feet, gingerly, for once glad that he'd fallen asleep fully clothed.   
He couldn't even remember getting back to Griffindor Tower, much less his own   
bed.  
  
The entire night was like a dream . . .  
  
He shook off the thought, shivering lightly as he gathered his shower kit; Seamus,   
Dean, and Neville were conspicuously absent. Good, though it appeared that Ron   
hadn't been exaggerating. He would most likely be late to breakfast.  
  
Somehow he couldn't bring himself to care.  
  
He pushed aside the door to the Boy's Bathroom with his shoulder, hands full with   
towel and clothes and shaving kit. Not that he shaved regularly just yet, but it had   
been about three days. He was getting bristly.  
  
Besides, a razor had more than one use.  
  
He stepped into the shadowy room, bare feet shivering on the acoustic tiles,   
goosebumps raising at the echoed roar of a showerhead in use, and the smaller,   
distinct *plish* of leaking pipes. As he neared one of the low, wooden benches, the   
showerhead was cut off with an ominous rumble accompanied by a loud screak.   
A smaller boy, probably a first year and no one Harry knew, pattered by him at a   
cautious run, towel clutched around his thin waist, hair streaming behind him.  
  
Harry shook his head. He could almost remember worrying about nothing more than   
food.  
  
Almost.  
  
Now that he was sure that the bathroom was empty, he set his bundled clothes on   
the bench, stripped slowly, and stepped beneath a showerhead. The water always   
came out glacier-cold before running boiler-hot.   
  
Today he let it.   
  
The shock of cold chased away his dreams. The heat felt good on his skin. He   
turned under the faucet, closing his eyes as a sense of security invaded him,   
virus-like, with the warmth. Water steamed down his skin, and he tilted his head   
back to let it patter inquiringly against paper-thin lids and invade his parted lips.   
Heat penetrated his heart with the convulsive shiver of fleeing ice. It had been so   
cold in the dungeon--  
  
He needed to get down to breakfast. The others would worry.   
  
Okay, the others would worry more.  
  
See, he *wasn't* thinking about it, really he wasn't.   
  
He wasn't.  
  
And if he was, it was the food that grounded him. It's all very well to melt in a dream,   
but reality has quite a different face.   
  
At the thought of food his stomach lurched, acid razing his throat, and he had to lean   
against the shower wall, breathing carefully, until the sensation passed. He panted   
there for a moment, senses reeling; the heat of the shower, so comforting a moment   
before, caused a sweat to break out over his skin, and he ducked his head down.   
Just breathe.  
  
Okay, perhaps he would skip breakfast. So, straight to Potions.  
  
His stomach lurched again.  
  
He was *not* thinking about it.  
  
This time he fell to his knees, splitting one open on the hard tile, nearly vomiting   
into the spreading pool of blood. Oh, Merlin. He scrabbled away from the sight of   
crimson, breaths going rapid and light, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to hold his   
stomach down.  
  
He couldn't feel his heart beat. It had been pounding a moment ago. Why couldn't  
he feel his heart?  
  
He curled in on himself, leaning into the cold wall; the tiles felt good on his flushed   
skin, and his nausea slowly subsided. The scalding water was beginning to redden   
his flesh with mild burns. His hands were trembling like he had palsy; he trapped   
them against his chest and shivered.  
  
He couldn't go to Potions.   
  
He'd known that since the moment Snape had wrenched out of him and flung him   
away.  
  
Snape would stare at him. Snape would sneer at him. Snape would act as though  
nothing had happened.   
  
Nothing at all.  
  
Nothing. Nothing. Oh Merlin, Harry wanted to *agree*. Nothing . . .  
  
But . . . if he stayed in the shower all day . . . which was hardly practical since Ron   
or Hermione would eventually notice his absence, but if he stayed, if he didn't go   
to his classes and act normally, then . . .  
  
Then Snape would *know*. Snape would *know* that he'd gotten to Harry, actually  
frightened Harry, traumatized Harry for life. Snape would *know*.  
  
Snape would *win*.  
  
And no way in hell was Harry going to let *that* happen.  
  
***************************************************************  
  
He skulked into the Great Hall approximately four minutes before breakfast was   
scheduled to end; the Hall was hemorrhaging students through the great double   
doors, and at a mere five feet four inches Harry was battered in the flood. Ron   
apparently spotted him through the chaos, and at five-ten the red-haired youth had   
a far better chance of flogging his way downstream.  
  
"Alright there, Harry?" Ron bellowed, dragging Hermoine behind him by her wrist   
like a goaded bull. She did not look happy.  
  
"Where were you, Harry?" she asked as soon as she was in speaking-range.   
"You completely missed breakfast, and you could have been late to class!"  
  
Okay, so she was unhappy with him, not Ron. Typical. He misses breakfast and   
gets castigated for the next three meals. Ron manhandles her and he gets treated  
like such behavior is normal.  
  
Oh, wait. Such behavior *is* normal. For Ron.  
  
He grimaced a smile.  
  
"Just overslept, 'Mione," he explained, shifting his bag on his aching shoulders.   
  
Snape had held him there. Snape's broad hands had left bruises in the shape of   
his long, tapering fingers.  
  
"Harry?" Hermione asked him; they were both cutting their eyes at him nervously,   
and he glared quizzically at his shoes. He must have blinked out for a moment.  
  
"Sorry, what were you saying?" he asked, carefully not looking up.  
  
"Nothing . . ." Hermione said slowly, worry bright in her doe-eyes.  
  
Harry frowned to himself, suddenly feeling a shiver of paranoia. Hermione was   
often far too curious for anyone's good.  
  
"Shouldn't we get to class?" he said, forcing a cheerful smile, carving himself   
back into the mask.   
  
Ron bit his lip; Hermione just nodded.  
  
*They suspect.*  
  
Snape's voice. That rasping purr beating at his very soul.  
  
Harry ignored all of it, shoving the feeling down until he was clear, clear as glass,   
clear as the lake in late summer. Nothing could touch him. Nothing.  
  
Not even Ron and Hermoine shooting eloquent glances over and around his head.  
  
"Want me to carry your stuff, Harry?" Ron asked as the trio began walking down   
the hall together; Harry glanced up at him sideways, cocking an eyebrow quizzically.  
  
"What for?" he asked, missing Hermione's exasperated glare.  
  
"You, umm," Ron floundered. "Look sore from Quidditch?"  
  
"I haven't had a practice yet," Harry said without thinking.  
  
"Then where have you been all week?" Hermione pounced on his answer like   
Crookshanks on a rat. Her eyes beat at his facade. Ron cut sheepish looks at   
him between staring at his clasped hands.  
  
"I . . ." Aw, fuck.  
  
Caught.  
  
It's never a great idea to lie to the people who know you best.  
  
He could feel the flush rising in his pale cheeks, a sudden overwhelming wave of   
anxious heat. Fight or flight time.  
  
"C'mon, you'll be late!" A first year shouted; her shoulder caught his as she dashed   
past them, and he used the momentum to spin off into the crowd.  
  
Saved by the bell.  
  
How ironically . . . nonmagical.  
  
And, like any courageous Griffindor, he ran.  
  
*************************************************  
  
He arrived flushed and out of breath, book bag heavy on one shoulder, and tried   
to calm his panting breaths. He stopped short in the hallway, just outside the   
massive wooden door. Other students, less afraid, less aware, streamered past   
him as small black fish into a net.   
  
He could almost see it closing about their writhing bodies.  
  
A shudder pressed him close; he breathed through it, ignoring the flashes of   
crimson behind his squeezed lids.  
  
"Harry!"   
  
Blast. They'd caught him.  
  
"Harry, why'd you run off like that, mate?" Ron asked, standing a bit too close   
to him with his hands hovering in midair as though he'd like nothing more than   
to beat some sanity into his friend. Harry blinked his eyes opened, and grinned   
shakily.  
  
"Didn't want to be late," he said, lying with all he was worth. "But then I thought I   
should wait for you."  
  
"Well, of course you should have!" Ron exclaimed, grinning easily. He'd gotten   
so much bigger over the summer, Harry thought. So much bigger . . .  
  
He shrank back a bit.  
  
"I'm worried about you, Harry," Hermione said finally, staring at him as though   
attempting to read his very soul.   
  
"It's nothing," he lied, wishing he could just dart through the open door. Another   
student dashed through, and he cast a longing look after the back of her robe.   
"I'll be fine."  
  
"Look," Hermione said, apparently noticing his distraction. Her eyes narrowed.   
"We'll talk about this after class." He nodded shortly, more to get her off his back   
than in agreement. She nodded firmly in return, tossed her hair, and strode through   
the door.  
  
"Whew!" Ron breathed as soon as she was out of hearing range. "What's got into   
her today?"   
  
The door was beginning to close, and the red head gave it a nervous glance.  
  
"Same as usual, Ron," Harry said, eyeing the door over Ron's shoulder. It was   
almost ominous, and yet so perfectly mundane that he couldn't understand his   
response at all.  
  
And still, the closing door looked like a gaping maw, ready to swallow him whole.  
  
"You'll have to talk to her, mate," Ron said, breaking into his thoughts. "You know  
what she can be like."  
  
"Yes," Harry whispered, staring as the door moved another few centimeters, then   
a bit more. If only it creaked, or squealed with rusty hinges, or in any way sounded   
*natural*. "I'll talk to her."  
  
"Alright, then," Ron said, looking relieved. He made an abortive move for the door,  
stopping abruptly when Harry made no move to follow. "You coming, Harry?"  
  
"In a minute," he said, his voice nearer a whisper. The door was closing. The door  
was closing. What kind of teacher placed such a spell on a door? "I'll be along  
in a moment."  
  
"O . . . kay," Ron said, no doubt remembering the results of Harry's last such   
promise. Perhaps he should have gone to breakfast, if only to maintain credibility.   
"I'll see you in there, then?" He said brightly, taking a step toward the door.  
  
It would swallow him!  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, shoving down his screaming fear. "In a minute, Ron."  
  
The last came out more harshly than he'd intended. Ron stepped back again, his   
brows drawing together in a martyred expression of hurt.  
  
"Yeah," Ron said one last time, swallowing. Then he disappeared through the   
closing door.  
  
Into Snape's domain.  
  
Once that door closed, Harry would be trapped outside, and fated for a detention   
should he enter through the closed door. And after a few moments, during which   
the class was supposed to be preparing, Snape would burst through his spell, robes   
flaring wing-like behind him.  
  
He shuddered, and leaned against the wall, eyes closing.  
  
Fish in a net.  
  
"Potter," a familiar voice sneered. "Weasel and the mudblood finally desert you to   
your betters?"  
  
"Malfoy," Harry breathed wearily. He did *not* want to deal with this right now. He  
opened his eyes reluctantly. "Sod off, will you?"  
  
Malfoy was smirking at him, standing before a closing door. A student slipped in   
behind him, and Draco caught the door's edge on his heel.  
  
"Coming, Potter?" he asked, arching one ice-blond brow. "Or did you fancy another   
detention?"  
  
Was that . . . kindness? Was Malfoy actually looking out for him?  
  
Nah. Impossible.  
  
Malfoy blinked at him, waited a moment more, and then slipped in through the narrow  
crack between door and jamb. The door settled into place without a sound.   
  
He just had to wrench aside the knob, fling open the door, billow his way inside like  
Snape on a snit.   
  
No problem.  
  
The man hadn't even arrived yet. He could still make it to his seat.   
  
Harry's heart was clenched in his chest, and his incipient panic attack went unnoticed.  
  
All he knew was that he simply couldn't go in there. All his Griffindor courage, all his   
resolution, all his determination. Gone.   
  
He simply couldn't face the man.  
  
That was all.  
  
**************  
  
A/N Next time, detention! Heh. And good news, I already have about half of the next  
chapter written. Yay! So, review, and I could post much sooner. ;) 


	4. Temporarily Pacify this Hungering

SEV-Slightly Edited Version: This chapter contains a rather   
protracted scene of implied rape, committed by an adult on   
a minor, though Harry *is* over 16. The language is largely  
metaphorical. If this is not your cup of tea, go brew your own!  
  
So, if this fic is presented in the form of a circle, then this chapter  
would definitely be the lowest point before we begin to swing  
upwards again. :)  
  
  
****************************************************  
A Perfect Circle  
Chapter 4: Temporarily Pacify this Hungering  
****************************************************  
  
run desire run this sexual being   
run him like a blade   
to and through the heart   
no conscience   
one motive   
to cater to the hollow  
screaming feed me here   
fill me up again   
temporarily pacify this hungering  
so grow libido   
throw dominoes of indiscretions down   
falling all around in cycles   
circles   
constantly consuming,   
conquer and devour  
it's time to bring this fire down   
bridle all this indiscretion   
long enough to edify and permanently fill this hollow  
feed me fill me up again temporarily pacifying  
feed me here fill me up again temporarily pacify this hungering   
-the hollow  
-a perfect circle  
  
  
  
  
He stayed in the Owlery all day, until dinner had ended and the curfew   
bell had rung the tower down, until night had covered Hogwarts in its   
shivering embrace. Hedwig was a comforting presence, a soft weight   
by his side where he curled against the wall pretending to nap.   
  
He wasn't actually sleeping, of course.  
  
He *couldn't* sleep. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to sleep   
again.  
  
His book bag had been dropped carelessly by the door, too heavy   
to bear further, but he himself was hidden behind a row of perches;   
bags of sawdust and cedar chips also provided some cover, along   
with masking somewhat the strong scent of a mews.   
  
His legs and butt had gone numb long ago; in the case of the latter,   
numbness was a mercy. He was still a bit raw from his first time.   
He'd stayed in the same position all day, knees to chest, arms   
curled protectively around his legs, chin on knees. The light dappled   
slowly in shifting slanted beams across the far wall, dancing dust-  
motes in the slow swirling drafts, until finally the tower faded into   
shadow.   
  
It was growing cold; though it was still early in the fall, the northern   
nights were frost-wreathed and fog-prone. He tucked a bit more   
tightly around his legs, biting his lip to prevent any teeth-chattering.   
  
True, no one had disturbed his peace this day, but someone might   
yet decide to mail a letter to a sickly aunt or something. You could   
never be sure.  
  
He shifted again, feeling the tremors course through his numbed   
flesh, awakening faint prickles with the restoration of blood flow.   
  
This not thinking thing was definitely getting easier with practice.  
  
A full-out shudder wracked him then, and he finally gave up; throwing   
out his arms for balance, he climbed unsteadily to his feet, being   
careful not to disturb Hedwig. He moved through the full dark like   
it was daylight, swinging his bag onto his aching shoulders and   
striding with something like confidence to the door, paying   
absolutely no heed to the roar of returned feeling currently burning   
his legs.   
  
He paused with the door partly open, hand braced on the frame.   
Breathe in. Breathe out. Where was he going? His own presence   
was intolerable; how would the common room be? The library?   
The Great Hall.   
  
He let his hand fall from the splintering wood, breath leaving him   
in a rush. He couldn't even live with himself, much less his friends.  
  
Hermione would . . .  
  
No. None of them would understand. They *couldn't*. He didn't   
*want* them to be able to understand. Not if it meant going through   
this.  
  
He wouldn't wish this on anyone.  
  
His back pack was dropped to the floor again, and he slumped   
down the wall by the door; he was staring at his wrists, a few   
speculative thoughts running through his tired mind. The skin   
there was so thin, so fragile; his blood pumped blue through   
clearly visible veins. No chance of missing.  
  
Hedwig shuffled her wings, turning her head to stare at him sleepily.   
He met her gaze after a moment, feeling a need almost to explain   
his thoughts to her. She blinked.   
  
"I don't want this anymore, Hedwig," he whispered, running one   
finger down the snaking tributaries of his forearm. "I never wanted   
any of it." His nails scratched into the flesh, just a light sensation   
of jittery anticipation, four thin white marks carved into the   
dehydrated tissue. "And now . . ." Then harder, the marks flushing   
red, the aroused blood beating to the surface and finally breaking   
through, staining his nails and fingertips with a wash of crimson.  
  
And something curious happened.  
  
When the pain came, his heart stopped hurting.  
  
His hand stopped moving of its own accord. He stared at the torn   
skin with a vague horrified wonder. The logical connection was   
inevitable: if he hurt himself, then the things Snape had done to   
him didn't hurt quite so bad.  
  
Perhaps the release of endorphins, or a sense of regained control,   
or the fact that he liked the color of his own blood trapped black   
and gummy under his own nails.   
  
Whatever it was, it was *his*. *Harry's*. No one else's. Just his.  
  
Blood had trickled down nearly to his sleeve, a thread of scarlet   
bisecting marble. He licked up his wrist in a single, broad stroke,   
swallowing sweet copper. Was this what Snape tasted? Was this   
what Snape felt?   
  
Did he want the answer to that?  
  
He shuddered away from his torn wrist, literally, scrambling to his   
feet and backing into the wall with a *thump*. His breathing was   
hard, and unsteady, like a run-out horse; nervous sweat had   
soaked his temples. He'd just experienced a brief paradigm   
shift. Those are never pleasant.  
  
Rather like having one's brain stirred with a wooden spoon, really.   
  
Everything settled back into place with a snap, and he found himself   
pressed into the wall so hard that it was digging into his spine; his   
legs were shaking, and he let all his breath go out in a sob as the   
pain welled within him.   
  
He couldn't fucking *breathe*, it hurt so much.  
  
He was curled over his knees, almost retching with self-hatred.   
Blood was pounding into his head. Even behind his eyes, the   
closed lids paper-thin, he could see the bright flashes of light   
heralding unconsciousness.  
  
And oh, he longed for it.   
  
He just wanted this to stop.  
  
Hedwig had flopped over, awkward as any bird on the ground, wings   
too long for proper hopping, and was currently nudging softly at his   
knee. He sank to the ground beside her, finally breaking into tears.   
  
He wanted to die.  
  
He wanted to see his mother again.   
***  
  
It was full dark before he finally dragged himself to his feet and   
through the door. Hedwig cooed a soft goodbye, but he ignored   
her, absorbed so in his pain that he almost didn't notice the outer   
world.  
  
He stepped gingerly down the stairs, watching for any changes as   
he felt his way through the dim light. It was definitely after curfew; if   
he was caught, there'd be hell to pay. Not that he wasn't in dreadful   
trouble already. One did *not* skip a potions class without a *very*   
good excuse.  
  
He shivered his way through a side corridor, unnerved by the thought.   
Though he was careful to keep to the shadows, he was very aware of   
his absent Invisibility Cloak; paranoid glares about the castle were   
alternated with cursing renunciations of his own stupidity.  
  
"Going somewhere, Potter?"  
  
The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and he choked on a   
scream as he leapt backwards. Snape emerged from the shadows   
like a darker ghost, a grim sneer twisting his lips. Harry stared up at   
him, terror creeping into his eyes.  
  
"Well, Potter?" Snape asked, only stopping when he'd forced Harry   
into a wall; he loomed over the boy, using his bulk to crush him into   
the chill stone. Harry gulped.  
  
"Just back to my room, sir," Harry whispered, staring up at Snape like   
a lost soul seeing hell for the first time. Snape's sneer widened.  
  
"Having been *where* all afternoon, I wonder," Snape said with a cutting   
sarcasm.  
  
"No-- Nowhere, Professor," Harry stuttered, his eyes sliding away   
involuntarily; his heart was beating too quickly to count, and he felt   
on the verge of hyperventilation again.  
  
"Is that so?" Snape's voice was silky now. He pressed in closer, though   
it seemed impossible, the black robes rising to nearly suffocate the boy.   
Harry could feel the Potions Master's erection through the layers of thick   
cloth, and he moaned in terror. "And did we not discuss your terms of   
address? You are to address me as Master in private."  
  
"What?!" Harry's fear shattered beneath the ludicrous words; he   
met Snape's eyes incredulously. "We discussed no such thing!"   
he shouted, suddenly not caring if they were found. He actually had   
the pleasure of watching Snape's panicked eyes roll to either end of   
the hallway, before a slim-fingered hand covered his mouth and nose.  
  
His fear rushed back in a heart-jolting prickle. He jerked once, then   
again, and was still. Those strong fingers slid around to grip the back   
of his neck, making the nerves there twitch and shudder.  
  
Snape leaned in, as though to sniff at his neck, close enough to kiss.   
Or kill.  
  
"Oh, Potter," he murmured like a lover.  
  
"Please," Harry whispered, eyes tightly shut. Snape chuckled. Caressed   
torn skin.  
  
"We'll take this down to my office, Potter," Snape growled into his soft-  
fleshed throat. "We have much to . . . *discuss*."  
  
"Like what?" he asked breathily, staring up at the Potion's Master from   
beneath trembling lashes.  
  
"I believe we've been over this. And really, Potter, I'm surprised your   
grades aren't even worse if this is as much attention as you grant   
everything."  
  
"What do you *want* with me?!" he cried, twisting in Snape's vise-like   
hold.  
  
"*Want*, Potter? Want isn't an issue here," Snape said, oddly still as   
he spoke to the boy. His eyes burned. "*Need* is an issue. *Command*   
is an issue. *Want* doesn't really enter into things at all."  
  
Harry stared at him, disbelieving fear crawling through his eyes, glowing   
them green.  
  
"I know what you're thinking," Snape purred. "I thought it once as well.   
But you *will* be broken, Potter. Make no mistake, you *will* be broken.   
Now come, to my office."  
  
"I won't," he breathed.  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"I won't." Voice stronger.  
  
Snape regarded him consideringly for a long moment.  
  
"You're right, Potter." He smiled thinly. "We aren't moving nearly fast   
enough, are we?"   
***  
  
He was marched down each long hall, Snape's wand at his back,   
Snape's long white fingers around his throat. They encountered no   
one else, not even a ghost, though outside interference couldn't save   
him now. He'd become resigned to this fate; Snape was absolutely   
right. Harry could deny it into eternity, but he was half-broken already.   
  
He sobbed once at the thought, a harsh sound in the silence, and   
Snape shook him roughly.   
  
"Stop your sniveling, boy," he growled into the torch-lit darkness.   
"I haven't hurt you. Yet."  
  
"Frankly, sir, it's the 'yet' that has me worried," Harry returned   
breathlessly, wanting to stab himself for a fool as soon as the   
words left his mouth.  
  
"As it should, Potter," Snape purred, deep in his throat like a hunting   
tiger. "As it should."  
  
And down innumerable stairs, for once immobile in the shifting light;   
Snape pushed him bodily down to the dungeons, straight ahead, right   
turn, left turn, cross the corridor, third turn on the right, left again, and   
there!  
  
He was shoved through the door so roughly that he had to pinwheel   
his arms to keep from falling; Snape caught him before he could   
regain his balance, forcing him into arms swathed in smoke-scented   
wool. He was spun about to face the taller man; Harry looked up at him   
warily, the mouse watching the snake. Snape sneered.  
  
"You have much to answer for, Potter," Snape said, fingers tightening   
on slender shoulders until bones creaked protest. Harry winced, and   
tried to pull back. Cloth tore, and Harry gulped a panicked breath. He   
couldn't breathe.  
  
"Please, stop," he gasped, fingers clawing helplessly at the heavy,   
enveloping fabric. Snape shifted, dug fingers into the shoulder's   
ball socket, and squeezed until Harry was babbling confession.   
"I didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't--"  
  
"Stop that whinging this instant!" And Snape ripped into Harry's   
Griffindor robes; buttons clattered to the flagstones with the sound   
of snapping thread and riven pressed wool. Harry shouted wordlessly,   
cringing back from the sudden assault as Snape bruised his flesh   
with the force of each pull.  
  
"This shall be our pattern," Snape growled, fingers busy at the more   
durable Muggle clothing as he stripped Harry down to skin. "When you   
behave badly, you will be punished." Snape paused, looking down at   
his shivering charge. "Oh, I won't be taking points from your precious   
Griffindors any longer," he continued, smoothing a hand over Harry's   
neck and squeezing lightly. "Instead, you will be assigned detention,"   
he said, fingers tightening with each word. "And I will do my best to   
make you *bleed*." By the end Harry was gasping thinly for air.   
Harry's vision spotted and blurred, and his body sagged in Snape's   
grip, knees unable to support his slight weight.  
  
Snape released his grip suddenly; Harry gulped in a breath of air so   
sweet it rushed through him like liquor, and collapsed in a boneless   
heap. Snape caught him before he could hit the flagstones, cradling   
Harry's body onto his robed lap.   
  
"But if you are good," Snape purred, running his fingers through Harry's   
untamed hair. "Then I won't hurt you when I take you." He nuzzled against   
Harry's cheek a bit; Harry groaned, coughed weakly, and turned his face   
away.  
  
Snape drew back, ebon eyes glittering cold.  
  
"Today, my dear boy," he purred in mock of Dumbledore. "You have   
been *very* bad."  
  
"No," Harry murmured; Snape seemed to take no notice.  
  
"Skipping breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Mister Potter? Is that how you   
were raised?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Everything stopped.   
  
Snape had obviously meant the question to be rhetorical, as yet   
another occasion to mock his least favorite student. He hadn't   
expected an answer. His brows furrowed, and he actually looked   
at the starkly visible ribs beneath his fingertips. He licked his lips.  
  
"You look beautiful," he said slowly. "Remind me to thank those Muggles   
when I see them."  
  
"What?" Harry's head snapped up, and he stared at Snape, amazed.   
Oh, not that he showed zero sympathy for poor starved Potter, but that   
he'd evinced a desire to visit *Muggles*. "Why would you want to meet   
*them*?!"  
  
Snape laughed.  
  
"Well I must discuss your living arrangements for next summer," he said,   
actually smiling. "We can't have you all alone and undisciplined for three   
months, now can we?"  
  
The tower clock began to toll the hour.  
  
Harry blinked.  
  
Live with *Snape*. Like *this*?  
  
"I'm in Hell," Harry whispered, eyes going unfocused and vague with   
sheer imaginative dread.   
  
"Not quite yet, Mister Potter," Snape said briskly, climbing to his feet.   
He dragged Harry up with him as though the boy weighed nothing. "Oh,   
and also remind me to feed you a nourishment potion before you leave.   
Can't have you dying of malnutrition, can we?"  
  
"Actually, that was rather the point," Harry muttered numbly into Snape's   
side.   
  
"Do it and you'll be seeing Dumbledore again straight after," Snape   
growled in reply as he dropped Harry shivering into an overstuffed chair.   
Harry very carefully did not think of his scratched wrists.   
  
Snape knelt before the boy, pinning his slender arms and staring into his   
eyes as though to strike dead his soul.  
  
"Understand me, boy," he said, his voice deadly enchanting like snake's   
eyes. "I want one thing from you: control. I will have it, one way or another.   
And I can be patient. So patient the earth would be amazed. This is not   
anger, this is not impatience or simple frustration. This is the punishment   
that you *earned* today, Potter, with your immoderate actions and lack of   
respect for the rules. Are we clear?"  
  
"I don't--" Harry said, voice small.  
  
"Are we *clear*!" Snape blasted him, shaking his thin form so that his   
eyes rolled nearly back into his head. He bit through his lip, and blood   
began to trickle down his chin.   
  
"Yes, sir," he stuttered, wanting nothing more than to stop moving.  
  
"Excellent," Snape purred, settling Harry back against the cushions. Harry   
stared at him, dazed.  
  
Perhaps the Potions Master indeed had some plan that he was following   
to the very point, but his actions looked a lot like insanity to this boy wizard.  
  
The Orb glinted in the dim light, perched near the edge of Snape's wide,   
cluttered desk. Snape stepped back, fingers going to the row of tiny buttons   
fronting his own flowing robes. Harry shuddered, backing away from the   
slowly-revealed form as though it rivaled the dementors for horrific imagery.   
His back hit the desk, and Snape's tailored slacks --black, of course-- hit   
the floor and were kicked carelessly aside. Snape grinned, a grim pulling-  
back of his lips. His canines rivaled Lupin's for sharpness.  
  
If this were a Muggle movie, Harry'd vault into a backwards somersault   
and land behind the broad desk, immediately discover some useful   
weapon, and blast his way to freedom in the bloodiest, most crowd-  
pleasing way possible.  
  
This was *not* a Muggle movie.  
  
Snape shoved him over the desk, easily turning his naked form and   
slamming his chest into quill-holders and stacks of red-stained blotters,   
fingers raking furrows down his cream-colored sides, rippling a rhythm   
on starvation-bared ribs. Perhaps he *should* eat more often. Snape's   
hair brushed tinier fingers on whip-marked flesh, the black strands not   
greasy as commonly suspected but corn silk fine and thin enough to   
lash. Harry kept his head down, feeling breath lapping his neck, brow   
pressed to carved and varnished mahogany, chest sticking with sweat   
to the crinkle and rustle of ungraded papers.  
  
A few students would probably be relieved to never see their essays   
again. After all, such is life.  
  
"You seem to be experiencing a certain deficit of attention this evening,   
Potter," Snape growled into his shoulder, teasing the bruised skin there   
with little nips and lippings like a horse at oats. The image would be   
amusing if not for the sharp teeth.  
  
"One could almost believe that you don't wish to be here," Snape said,   
hair tickling down Harry's neck, pooling in ebon strands on the desk top   
just before his eyes. Harry blinked.  
  
"At this point it is customary to beg for mercy," came the whisper in his   
right ear, so close that he jerked in the Potions Master's hold. His heart   
jumped to a gallop in his breast. He held his breath.   
  
"*Now*, Potter!" Snape roared into his flyaway hair, shoving into him with   
a single thrust.  
  
. . .  
  
The man had killed him that time.  
  
. . .  
  
It was actually some time, possibly several minutes, before he realized   
that the gasped screams were coming from *him*. The pain was like . . .   
It was . . .  
  
It was like nothing he'd ever known, nor could hope to describe.  
  
His chin hit the desk top hard, smashing his lower lip against his teeth,   
and splitting the silk-thin skin; a wash of blood streaked the varnished   
mahogany, in echo of the spatters down his inner thighs. A few droplets   
streaked the Orb crimson. Lights burst before his eyes, the death of   
neurons, and he scrabbled a hand up and before his face, absorbing   
each blow in bone and skin.   
  
Snape's hips slammed into his lean-muscled buttocks, leaving bruised   
reflections of jutting bone. His hands gripped Harry's shoulder and hip,   
for leverage, grinding finger-shaped marks into the boy. His teeth tore   
into Harry's back; he was attempting to leave his name, though he was   
quite confident that it would take him at least twenty tries to scar in each   
letter.  
  
"I will have you, "he panted into Harry's bloodied skin. "I will posses you.   
I will!"  
  
"No," Harry whispered, too quiet for comprehension.  
  
"You are mine, and do you know why, boy?" Snape bit a line down Harry's   
neck, licking the blood in a broad stripe to his chin. "Because no one else   
wants you. No one else cares."  
  
"That's not true," Harry moaned, struggling weakly away from the Potions   
Master.  
  
"If they cared, wouldn't they have done something by now?" Snape hissed.   
"Wouldn't your dear *friends* have asked about *these*?" Licking the series   
of bruises down his throat.  
  
"They didn't see them!" Harry shouted, then again, wordlessly, as sharp   
pain flashed through him. "They didn't know," he said weakly, slumping   
in Snape's hold.   
  
The Orb rocked with their movements, once, then was still.  
  
Snape stilled, slowly, looking down at the boy spread across his bloodied   
desk. His brow furrowed, and he stirred idly to maintain his arousal as he   
thought; Harry moaned, slipping into a sort of half-consciousness of dim   
vision and lessened pain.   
  
Snape shifted his angle of penetration again, moving in short, almost-  
gentle thrusts as he searched for the boy's prostate; was rewarded by   
a fresh spate of moans when the gland was located. His fingers gentled   
on the chalk-pale skin, smoothing down to the boy's limp sex. He grasped   
the boy firmly, timing his first stroke with a direct thrust to the prostate.  
  
Harry breathed, a great gasping of air as he arched back off the desk   
into the Potions Master's chest; the dimness receded, and the pain was   
suddenly flare-bright. But there was pleasure, too. Warring signals   
competed in his brain, merged, and arched him again.  
  
"That's it, pretty thing," Snape crooned, holding Harry nearly upright.   
Harry's head lolled back against Snape's chest, and he looked up   
at the older man with glazed, uncomprehending eyes. Snape smiled.  
  
"You enjoy this," Snape purred, nuzzling into the sweating neck. Harry   
groaned wordlessly, tossing his sweat-soaked hair in mute protest. His   
body writhed under the older man's ministrations. "You might even come,   
were I to let you." He seemed to think for a moment. "Would that make it   
worse, I wonder? Would the degradation be more complete if you were   
forced to take such a willful part?"  
  
Harry's eyes rolled wildly; his hands flogged the air. Snape remained   
impassive, a sleek-sided figure, a form of shadows and ice-pale skin.   
His own hair remained unruffled and undampened. His skin was slicked   
with no sweat other than Harry's; certainly not his own. His eyes glittered.  
  
"Please," Harry said, pride gone the way of his bitten lips. "Please, don't."  
  
"Don't what?" Snape said, suddenly raising the boy to his toes. "Don't   
stop?"  
  
"Ahh!" Harry's lips bled again, and his desperate hand caught at Snape's   
hair. "Stop, please!"  
  
"Damned wretch," Snape muttered, slamming Harry back onto the   
desk; his breastbone made an uncomfortable sound, but Snape   
stretched himself onto the boy, lowering his greater weight with   
something like confidence. His hands tightened. "Damned lying   
*wretch*. You. Want. This," he grunted, emphasizing each word   
with a thrust. Harry could no longer scream. "You want this, you do!"  
  
Snape came, driving them both into bloodied mahogany, actually   
moving the ancient desk half an inch or more. The darkling   
contents of the Orb sloshed, roiled. Harry screamed at the last;   
a tear slipped onto the wet wood, mingling with his blood.   
  
Snape lay quietly for some time, breathing harshly into Harry's sweat-  
soaked hair. Harry didn't move. He was still aroused. He couldn't feel   
his legs.  
  
The tower clock tolled midnight. Snape stirred, snorted as though   
waking from a dream, and muttered a cleaning charm on himself.   
Harry he left sticky.   
  
The man was puttering around the low-ceilinged rooms, flickering   
the scattered candlelight as he paced his rooms; Harry slid slowly   
to the cold stone floor, ending curled on his side, mostly face-down.   
He was shivering; his thin shoulders were curved inward in a futile   
attempt to hide his arousal. It subsided as slowly, almost unnoticed   
but for inconvenience in the overwhelming pain of his torn body.  
  
The tower clock tolled the half-hour.  
  
He leaked a small pool of blood onto the stones; nothing movie-dramatic,   
but enough to send Ms. Pomfrey into conniptions, were she to see. But   
she never would. No one would. He shivered again.  
  
Snape, robe-swathed once more, strode with flaring wings back to where   
Harry lay curled before his desk; he nudged the boy with one toe, sneering   
distastefully at the streaks of blood. Harry's body rocked a bit, but he   
otherwise didn't move. A quick wave of his wand, and the blood vanished   
from floor and desk alike. Harry's skin retained the stains, however, in a   
spattering of black-dried blood across his pale skin.  
  
"Up, Mister Potter," Snape growled, pinning him with a black glare that   
he could feel searing his back. The toe nudged him again. "Up, I say! Or   
did you want another lesson in obedience?"  
  
Harry started, jerking himself as far as his elbows before having to stop;   
eyes squeezed shut, he rode out the pain without a whimper. Snape   
scowled at him.   
  
"Wouldn't your parents be ashamed to see this," he said contemplatively.   
"Proud Potter, barely able to *crawl* before me." His final words were   
gloating, and Harry's head whipped around, ignoring the pain.  
  
"Don't talk about my parents," Harry said, his voice a dangerous whisper.   
Snape paused.   
  
Had Voldemort painted a portrait of Harry's eyes upon the moment they   
reflected his killing curse, it would have resembled this moment almost   
exactly.  
  
"Don't you speak their *names*," he grated, eyes blazing.   
  
Snape stared down at him thoughtfully for a few long moments; naked,   
bloodied, to all appearances broken, and yet . . . He smiled. And   
nodded.  
  
"Fair enough, Potter," he said silkily. "Your defiance, of course, will have   
to be punished," he continued, with a pause to relish Harry's sudden   
indrawn breath. "But not until this lesson has healed, of course." He   
finished, leaning over to grasp the flinching boy under the arms and lift   
him bodily to his wavering feet. "*Accio* *robes*!" Snape said, catching   
them with one hand while holding Harry on his feet with the other.   
  
Harry flinched away from the scrape of wool on open wounds, but relaxed   
into the warmth once the robes had settled. Snape finished dressing him   
with a gleam like satisfaction lighting his black eyes. Harry shuddered,   
looking up at him.  
  
Snape patted the wayward hair, eyes almost paternal. Harry shivered again.  
  
"Don't heal these wounds," he said, eyes never losing their glow. "I want   
you to remember this for some time." His eyes hardened, and his grip   
tightened on the boy's shoulder until he'd wrung a gasp from him. "And   
pray don't confuse me with an incompetent; I *will* know if you heal   
yourself, or drink a potion. Make no mistake, boy," he breathed, leaning   
in to kiss Harry's bitten and bruised neck. Harry shivered helplessly.   
"I want you in *agony*."  
  
He leaned back, so suddenly that Harry nearly fell.  
  
"Get back to your dorm, boy," Snape said, his voice disconcertingly   
businesslike and professorial. Harry could only stare at him, shocked;   
he huddled into the robes as Snape's eyes spat fire. "Get to your dorm,   
Potter! Now!"  
  
Harry started at Snape's tone, and ran, skittering through the portrait-  
guarded door and down the darkened halls, leaving a scattering of   
blood behind him.  
  
Snape stared after him for an unknown time. The shadows lengthened.   
The portrait eventually closed itself. The tower clock chimed an uncounted,   
unmarked number. The candles burned out, plunging the room into   
darkness. And still Snape stared.  
  
Finally he started, seemed to come out of a trance, and looked wildly   
around the darkened room as though for an intruder. Wrapping himself   
in his voluminous robes, he circled his rooms thrice, renewing and   
relighting candles and examining each remaining shadow for clues.  
  
There was nothing.  
  
The Orb swirled, undisturbed, on his ancient, mahogany desk.  
  
He glared at orb and desk for a moment, brows drawn together thoughtfully.  
  
The tower clock chimed again, counting off four measured tones.  
  
Snape's head came up at the tolling of the bell; he counted the chimes,   
counted again in his head to be sure, cursed, and strode angrily for his   
bathroom. Forgetting the Orb and his confusion.   
  
The shadows lengthened.  
***  
  
A/N Once again, I'm not really clear on the explicit vs implied boundaries  
expected to be maintained on FF.net. Sure, this was violent and dealt  
with adult subject matter. But did you see From Hell? Or how about  
Rush? And they were rated R. ::shrug::  
  
To be continued in A Perfect Circle Chapter 5: I Rose(tentative) 


	5. Down Among a Million Sane

Okay, confession time, I was absolutely cackling while I   
wrote the Snape section. :) Hopefully you'll all be as   
confused as I intend. Heh.  
  
Note, the lyric was deliberately misquoted to form the title,   
which should be revealing and symbolic if I'm doing this right. :)  
  
**********************************************  
A Perfect Circle  
Chapter 5: Down Among a Million Sane   
**********************************************  
  
threw you the obvious and you flew with it on your back   
a name in your recollection down among a million same  
difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed and passed over   
when i've looked right through to see you naked and oblivious   
and you don't see me  
but i threw you the obvious   
just to see if there's more behind the eyes of a fallen angel   
eyes of a tragedy  
here i am expecting just a little bit too much from the wounded   
but i see through it all and see you  
so i threw you the obvious   
to see what occurs behind the eyes of a fallen angel   
eyes of a tragedy  
oh well apparently nothing   
you don't see me you don't see me at all  
  
-a perfect circle  
-3 libras  
  
  
  
  
He didn't know where to go.  
  
There wasn't anywhere he *could* go to escape this.  
  
The first bloody rays of dawn were creeping sticky-fingered through   
the tower windows, bathing his bruised face in crimson stripes. He   
was huddling against a wall, nearer the heavens this night, his body   
a single blazing point of agony.  
  
This hiding in towers bit was becoming habitual.  
  
He folded his arms into the borrowed robes, wrapping himself   
more tightly in the scratchy wool. He could hear everything in his   
head, every *screek* of wood and slap of flesh on flesh. Every   
scream. Played back like the soundtrack to some Muggle movie   
on endless repeat. He was sobbing quietly, as quietly as years   
of abuse and neglect can teach one to cry, feeling the panic rise   
in him again with the crescendo of internal agony.  
  
You liked it, a voice whispered. Husky. Dark. Familiar.  
  
He made me, I didn't want to, he answered.  
  
You wanted it, you enjoyed it.  
  
I didn't, I *swear*, I didn't . . .  
  
You wanted him.  
  
"Stop," he muttered, but the accusations didn't rest, and he could   
still hear Snape's silky insinuations. Even with his eyes open, he   
could see only the Potions Master, could only remember the things   
that the man had-- "Stop!" But Snape was still there, and Harry,   
frantic to banish the images behind his eyes, dashed his skull   
against the tower wall.   
  
Bright points of light flared beneath his squeezed-shut lids. The   
room reeled. He'd felt this before.  
  
But the memories were gone; he could sense them, just below the   
surface, but for now he could see the tower before him, bathed in   
early light.  
  
None of it was true, what Snape had said. Harry understood this   
rationally.  
  
What he felt was another matter.  
  
You think you're brave. You spend your entire life thinking that you   
are somehow braver than everyone else, or at least braver than   
most. Maybe you've just never been tried. Maybe you just always   
assumed.   
  
It's really fucking painful to have all of that ripped away from you.   
The comforting self-delusions. To find that you're actually terrified   
of your own shadow. Of everything, really.  
  
You used to be fearless. You used to face the night with welcoming   
arms, counting yourself among Her shadowed ranks. The demons   
of Her dark held no terror for you. But . . . They see you now. They   
know you. They want your pain, and they wear his face.  
  
He hugged his knees, his shivers quieting to nothing. He couldn't   
close his eyes, not deliberately, but he allowed them to slide   
together until he saw only a thin rim of dawnlight through his close   
lashes. It hurt, and he almost didn't care if the shadow-demons   
came for him, almost welcomed their approach behind his   
drooping lids. Let them come.   
  
There is a kind of bravery in desperation, he supposed.   
***  
  
It was breakfast time before he stirred; the sun was high, and bathed   
him in radiant light as he fled to the deeper castle shadows. He no   
longer deserved the light.  
  
He needed a shower. He needed to change. He needed a visit to   
Madam Pomfrey, but he was none too likely to receive any of these   
things. He went straight to the Great Hall. Wearing Snape's too-  
large robes, still naked beneath them and covered in his own blood   
and the other man's sweat and semen. He no doubt smelt horrible.   
  
He didn't have the strength to enter the double doors.  
  
He could hear the other students at breakfast, chattering and laughing   
and clinking cutlery against crockery, and the chewing chewing chewing   
like busy little moths. He was gnawing one of his knuckles. The blood   
ran a scarlet ribbon down his forearm; the taste of copper brought him   
to himself, and he stopped, wrapping the abused finger in a comforting   
arm.   
  
He wanted to die.  
  
The thought startled him; his head came up like a deer scenting the   
hunter, and he bolted from the carved doors. Snape's robes flared   
and flapped behind him like wings, the awkward leathery wings of   
a dragon. They'd be graceful if he ever managed to take off.  
  
Classes. Classes. Classes . . . Nothing but Charms today, and DADA,   
and isn't Professor Seehan a bloody moron, and don't you dare think   
about anything else. Need books, and a change, and pens and ink   
wells and paper, scrolls and scrolls of it.  
  
He was sobbing.  
  
He caught his shoulder on a corner of the armor on the second floor   
east hallway; it spun him around and to the floor, and he sprawled   
there, crying and panting for breath. You don't have to see him today,   
you don't have to see him today, you don't have to see him today . . .  
  
The chant wasn't helping.  
  
He wanted to be a real witch, he thought, running again through the   
shadow-slanted halls. The bell would toll soon. He wanted to mix   
the fouler portions of the earth in a great skillet or a cauldron, and   
see the deaths of his enemies there. He wanted to make an effigy   
of stone or wax or serpent's tongue and see it burn as his enemies   
would burn. He wanted--  
  
Didn't matter.  
  
He staggered through the portrait hole, ignoring the Pink Lady's   
protests and wondering again why they couldn't have made the   
door rectangular, like every other door in the world. He ached. He   
shouldn't even be aware of the parts that were hurting, he thought.   
None of this was right.  
  
Vlad the Impaler did things like this. Voldemort did things like this.   
  
Not Potions Masters.  
  
He ran with the stagger-gait of a gut wound, up the curling stairs to   
collapse in the nest of his bed. He was shivering, his skin clammy   
and startled. He stared up at the ceiling of his canopy and thought   
desperate thoughts.  
  
And how desperate do you have to be?  
  
His wand was a hard shape beneath his pillow; he drew it out right   
away and clutched it like the stuffed toys he'd never had. There   
wasn't much to wonder, aside from a general 'why'.  
  
Snape was six foot one. Not much to think on, but the difference in   
their heights amazed him. Like a wolfhound trying to mate with a   
Cocker Spaniel. He bit back a laugh.  
  
Laughter was inappropriate. He knew that. He wasn't stupid, or insane.  
  
It was all just terribly funny. In a horrible sort of way.  
  
He needed to get to breakfast. Snape told him to go to breakfast.   
He didn't think he could, but even as he was talking himself into   
staying curled up in bed he was climbing painfully to his feet.  
  
How was he supposed to play Quidditch like this?  
  
The irrelevance of the thought tore through him. He hated himself. The   
revulsion was like ice cream, and he scraped it thick and cold from his   
dead skin. How could he still be alive? How could he deserve to still   
be alive? Blood ran ribbons down his arms, shredded by ragged boy's   
nails. He wanted to die. He wanted to die. He wanted to die.  
  
He took a shower.   
  
It was remarkable, how one could go through the usual morning rituals   
without aid of a mirror; he never looked, not once, and it was like a   
small triumph in a sea of losses. He couldn't bear to look himself in the   
eye, anyway. There was no washing this clean. There was no purifying   
this soul.  
  
He was sore. The hot water stung, and he felt an ache deep, deep inside,   
below his liver somewhere and Snape said not to heal anything and it   
was *inside* of him, the pain was so deep he couldn't feel it, so deep he   
could only feel it down his legs and up his spine, so deep there weren't   
nerve endings for it.   
  
Water pattered gently on his scarred flesh. He gagged, on his knees   
staring at the drain, but nothing came up. There was nothing *to* come   
up. There would be no coming up. He couldn't breathe. His hair hurt,   
from where Snape had gripped it, from the cut in his scalp and the   
bruise where he'd been slammed into a wall, into a table, into the floor.   
Vernon never hit this hard. He could almost wish to be back in Little   
Whinging. Far better to be hated and *ignored* than . . .  
  
Would Dumbledore know? Dumbledore used to know everything, but   
he'd been getting slower, after Cedric . . . But he didn't think about   
Cedric.  
  
Ever.  
  
He wouldn't think about this, either. Shove it down, shove it down, just   
let him do whatever he wants and get through this. For Dumbledore,   
for . . . He had to . . .  
  
The towel scraped his skin, worse than Snape's old robes and he   
patted gingerly at his wounds. No healing, but surely cleaning them   
was okay? Unless Voldemort's plan was to have him die of an   
infection, and how silly was the entire idea anyway? This obviously   
wasn't working, he wasn't broken, he would get through this and   
someday he'd fucking kill the lot of them--  
  
A door opened.   
  
Voices on the stairs, laughing and happy, and he leapt into his clothes   
so quickly that a flash of hot pain caught his breath, and he felt blood   
trickle from --  
  
No.  
  
Not thinking about it.  
  
When Ron came in his breathing was under control, his books were   
on his bed, and he was dressed for class. Aside from the bruises   
on his face, he looked perfectly normal.  
  
"Merlin's blood, Harry, what happened to you?" Ron shouted, running   
forward to place a concerned hand on his friend's shoulder. Harry   
braced himself, knew it was coming, expected and welcomed the   
contact, and--  
  
Flinched back.  
  
"Harry?" Ron asked, taking a step back, his voice sounding lost.  
  
He couldn't do this.  
  
"I never got breakfast," he forced out. His voice sounded like he'd   
been screaming all night long. Oh, wait, he *had* been screaming   
all night long. He felt the tears begin, and ran, ignoring the pain as he   
jounced down the stairs and through the Common Room, making for   
the portrait.  
  
"Harry," Ron called from the top of the stairs. "You already missed   
breakfast, mate, we haveta get to class!"  
  
Harry ignored his friend. He couldn't . . .  
  
The portrait closed behind him, muffling anything further Ron might   
have said, and he fell back to lean against it, legs shaking.  
  
This was impossible. This was going to be utterly impossible.  
***  
  
He awoke slowly. One eye fluttered open, then the other, only to   
slide almost immediately shut. He was aware of a most complete,   
pervasive sense of satisfaction, of fulfillment, as well as a matching   
fatigue. In that first brief glimpse his room had still been filled with   
the thin grey of pre-dawn, so he wasn't terribly concerned about the   
time.  
  
He was lying on his back, elbows at his sides, one hand resting on   
his flat belly and the other on his hip, so that the little finger was just   
barely brushing his quiescent cock. He shivered luxuriously, and his   
hips rolled languidly, almost of their own accord. He was sore, a   
tingling, satiated sort of sore that spoke of a good fuck. And the   
location of the soreness told him that he'd been doing the fucking.  
  
A smile curled his lips. He stretched contentedly, toes curling, back   
arching, head canting gently to the side. His chin came to rest against   
the blankets, which covered him to the neck in a cocoon of warmth. It   
had been a long time since . . .   
  
Since what?  
  
One brow knotted; then both drew together, deepening the wrinkle   
above his aristocratic nose.   
  
Something was wrong.  
  
He'd gone to bed very late, extremely late -- or extremely early,   
depending upon one's point of view. He distinctly recalled hearing   
the four o'clock bells. He distinctly recalled rolling naked into bed,   
completely exhausted, as he hadn't been in years. He distinctly   
recalled feeling much the same sense of almost painful completion   
when he drifted into sleep.  
  
Except . . .  
  
Except he couldn't quite recall *why* . . .  
  
The blankets had worked their way down one shoulder; the damp   
autumn air crept into his flesh, sending a chill working through his   
body. He worked one hand up to nudge the blankets into place,   
letting the other settled more firmly on his cock, which was beginning   
a weak stir. He ran one finger up the sensitive flesh, along the vein   
beneath, rolling his hips, still thinking fiercely.   
  
The early morning sloth was ruined; he moved restlessly, shifting a   
knee, rearranging his arms, resettling his spine, but his peace   
refused to return. Nervous energy thrummed through him, propelling   
him up and out of bed. The blankets were scattered across the   
flagstones by his restless feet, like sprawled choir boys. He paced   
his apartments, still naked, scowling blackly at the uninformative   
furnishings.   
  
His rooms were clean; spotless, in fact. There was no sign he'd   
even had a casual visitor, much less a lover. Even his desk was   
cleared, which in itself was not entirely odd, but he felt the edge   
of remembering a sheaf of freshly graded papers there, on the   
corner.   
  
A large paperweight he couldn't quite remember buying had   
cracked, and he irritably muttered a cleaning spell at the spilled   
black fluid, and a hastily-cast Reparo to seal the fracture. The   
remaining skim of black liquid roiled prettily.   
  
More importantly, his quill holder was missing a quill, again not   
too alarming except he'd really liked that quill. It was a hawk's   
feather. You don't find those very often. Usually it's all phoenix-  
replica and peacock and ostrich. But a hawk feather held a   
much sharper, broader edge, and shed fewer strands of down . . .  
  
Oh Merlin.  
  
Years of teaching had finally taken their toll.  
  
He'd begun obsessing over school supplies.  
  
He shook off the idle thought, and the tiny smirk it had aroused,   
and staggered into the bathroom on pleasure-weakened legs. He'd   
definitely been up to *something* last night. Maybe a particularly   
vivid dream . . .  
  
The faucets screaked in his ancient tub, but the water gushed forth   
hot and pure; he filled the tub nearly to the brim, and eased himself   
into the scalding water with a series of tiny hisses and moans. The   
heat stung several scratches down his back and sides that he hadn't   
even noticed before climbing into the tub, and his cock especially   
cringed from the heat. Heartlessly he ignored his body's whinging,   
and settled in for a good soak.  
  
The stinging eased as the heat sterilized the miniscule wounds, and   
he relaxed completely, resting the back of his skull against the cool   
porcelain rim, trailing one arm over the side just to prevent heat   
prostration. He had nearly given himself a heat stroke before.   
Dumbledore had threatened to put a heat-regulator on his order   
with the house elves, forbidding them to allow him anything above   
twenty degrees centigrade, but his calm logic had prevailed, and   
he'd maintained the right to boil himself daily.  
  
He was admittedly running on something like three hours of sleep,   
if he remembered correctly, but he remained confident that the source   
of his body's minor complaints would be quickly sussed out. Simple   
process of elimination should do, he considered as he poured bath   
oil into the roiling tub. Ah, juniper. It's not like he'd had a steady lover   
since his Death Eater days.  
  
The life of a spy is rather lonelier than is portrayed in Muggle film.  
  
And he hadn't invited a casual fuck back to his rooms since . . . ever.   
He lathered up one long arm to the shoulder, then the other. And even   
if there were a reasonable explanation for his disarray, it shouldn't   
have impacted his mental state. Unless . . .   
  
He'd been raped.  
  
He sat frozen in the steaming water. Lather dripped from his pale   
flesh, and he splashed it away irritably, uncaring of the heat.  
  
There were potions that could do it, render one's victim complicit   
and conveniently forgetful. But who . . .? Who would bother, he   
growled angrily. No one had propositioned him in eight years, and   
he certainly hadn't turned anyone down in that time. Lucius? But no,   
the elder Malfoy had moved on to younger flesh years ago. He   
scowled, wringing the tired washrag like a neck. Disturbingly young.   
He'd have to do something about that, someday. Once his damn   
cover was already useless, he could . . .  
  
But *why*? There had to be a logical explanation, and there just   
wasn't. No one wanted him like that. Paranoia is only justified if   
they *want* you, if they care enough to bother. And no one did.  
  
He stood abruptly, cutting his musings short with the sheeting of   
water down his pale, scarred frame. He wrung the water from his   
hair, attacking it with a towel until no longer dripped, before he   
stepped out of the gently steaming water. The cold hit him like a   
shock, and he swayed slightly. Had he eaten . . .?  
  
Staggering the few steps to the sink, he gulped cold water until   
the nausea and lightheadedness faded, and then collapsed onto   
the side of the tub, where the corner neared the wall; he stayed   
there for a few long minutes, legs splayed out helplessly before   
him, eyes squeezed shut, running rivulets of water down the   
polished flagstones, until his breathing steadied, and he felt able   
to stand without keeling over.  
  
And if he went through this ritual every morning, it was hardly any   
of Albus' business.  
  
Eventually he crept back to the sink, to lean on his hands over   
the marble basin; he wiped away steam in one broad streak, so   
that he could meet his eyes in the mirror. It was enchanted, but   
had learned long ago to keep its thoughts silent.  
  
He knew the truth of this. His eyes were black coals, his hair was   
wild and still damp in spite of all his efforts, his nose was too large   
and too sharp, his cheekbones too high; he smiled bitterly at his   
reflection, revealing teeth yellowed by age and a life-long caffeine   
addiction. His earlier contentment vanished in the swell of self-hatred.  
  
This, too, was familiar. Routine.  
  
He turned from the mirror tiredly, not giving himself a parting   
glance goodbye. He draggled into his bedroom, throwing the   
towel carelessly to the bed and wandering slowly to his wardrobe.   
On with ebon-buttoned shirt, on with robes, on with buckled   
wizarding shoes, and there was nothing more to keep him here.   
  
But he didn't leave.   
  
He sat slowly on the edge of his bed, amid a nest of tousled sheet,   
and let his head fall into his hands; his palms ground into his closed   
eyes until stars burst behind the lids. He drew a shuddering breath,   
and smiled. The pain was temporary. It was all temporary, everything   
experienced in this bag of meat and bone.   
  
Mask resettled, heart carved into stone, he swept to his feet with   
the energy of a man twenty years his junior. No one wanted him. So   
what? He wanted no one. This mystery could just remain unsolved,   
he thought as he billowed through his front office. What cared he for   
phantoms pains and lost time?  
  
. . . ?  
  
He stopped suddenly in his quest to find the graded papers. Lost time?   
  
He had indeed forgotten last night, and . . . couldn't really remember   
the day before that, or the day before that, though he knew that time   
had passed. He'd been aware of time passing.   
  
This wasn't just a one time thing, then. This was no date rape potion,   
this was no drunken debauchery, this was no Death Eater orgy, this   
was . . .  
  
He hadn't felt this since . . .  
  
Voldemort.  
  
Voldemort's to blame.  
  
He *had* to see Albus.  
  
  
The Potions Master stalked from his rooms as though pursued,   
slamming the portrait shut behind him. Murmured curses echoed   
down the corridor for several moments after his departure.  
  
The Orb writhed, and roiled, and the sealing charm wore slowly away.  
  
Snape's chambers filled with a slow, subtle *drip*, *drip*, *drip*.  
***  
A/N Well, I know this was long in coming(sorry, pun unintentional), and  
a long wait espescially for no sex. However, I have to worry about my plot  
first, your need for smut second. Besides, there will be much sex next  
time. ;) 


End file.
